


Sappily Ever After

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Schmoop, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed and Roy are going to get married.  At least theoretically speaking…</p><p>[AU after Brotherhood with major spoilers.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sappily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> MERRY EXTREMELY LATE CHRISTMAS, [PANDA](http://paranoid-panda.tumblr.com)! ♥♥♥
> 
> To show you how much I love you, I broke my brain dedicating more thought to my OTP's fictional wedding in the past month and a half than I have done to my IRL wedding over the last year. :'D
> 
> Mega-thanks to the inimitable [Phindus](http://phindus.tumblr.com), who very kindly helped me brainstorm hilarity for this fic and accordingly received a ridiculous cameo. *brofist* ♥
> 
> I'm so sorry for the massive delay; [Edblog](http://who-you-callin.tumblr.com) pretty much assassinated my productivity on real fic, but fortunately I discovered a new [unrepentant OTP fluff anthem](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zk2PCti8-c), which helped a little. ;A; I hope it's worth the wait!! ♥♥♥

Ed drums his metal fingers on the table and pointedly narrows his eyes.

Nothing.

He sits back in his chair, crosses his arms, and looks down his nose.

Still nothing.

He heaves a deep sigh, clears his throat, and then coughs into his right fist (it’s more sanitary that way).

Roy looks up from drawing extremely detailed designs in his garlic mashed potatoes with the tines of his fork. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Ed says. “Are you?”

Roy blinks at him, all melt-your-kneecaps suavity and innocence. “Of course. Is something wrong?”

“Kinda,” Ed says slowly. “You tell me. You’re _never_ this quiet. And you’re just playing with your food, and not in the cat way. And you’ve got this little frown line right here—” He draws an imaginary counterpart between his own eyebrows. “—like you always do when you’re worried about something.”

Roy smiles at him, warmly, and sets his elbows on the tabletop, the better to knit his hands together and rest his chin on top of them. “Have I told you lately that I love the way you notice things like that?”

Ed’s blood quickens every time Roy says the L-word in his stupid, amazing velvet voice. It’s actually kind of horrible, because all Roy ever has to do is gaze at him intently and murmur it, and Ed’s just… gone. Sunk. _Roy_ ally fucked, you might say.

“Not, like, _lately_ -lately,” he mumbles. “Anyway, what are you worried about? Is it work? You want me to go around ‘accidentally’ crushing metal railings in front of certain people again?”

“Much as the property damage was _more_ than worth it on that occasion,” Roy says, “it did leave me with a rather unpalatable pile of paperwork, and I don’t think matters are up to that point just yet.”

“Okay,” Ed says. He twists his hands together under the table to stop himself from fidgeting—sure, he can part some of the Mustang smoke and mirrors by now, but Roy’s _always_ been able to read his tells like an ABCs book. “So what is it?”

Roy lowers his hands to the table again, running his fingertips along the edge, smoothing wrinkles out of the tablecloth. He flattens them on either side of his plate, bows his head, closes his eyes, and goes still for a long moment. Then he looks up, half-smiling, and it seems like he’s searching Ed’s face for something, like he’s almost—scared?

Roy Mustang doesn’t do scared. Roy Mustang is the scariest thing in the country these days, by the standards of rational people as well as his political opponents. Roy does wary, and cautiously uncertain, but he doesn’t do _scared_.

What the hell _is_ this?

Ed’s brain is moving at a hundred-thousand miles a minute; his heart pounds as Roy’s lips part, and a freezing shard of genuine terror lances up his spine—what if they’re over? What if this is Roy wetting his lips to ask for _time off_ , which they both know means a breakup, severance, separation, a chasm cleaved between them that they can try to bridge and cover up, but that will _never_ fit together quite the same?

What if it’s not even that? What if Roy’s _bored_ , and it’s _finished_?

But it seemed like it was going so _well_. They don’t even really fight anymore; sometimes they play-fight over stupid shit like leaving wet towels in weird places, which actually sort of became a game of hiding them in unlikely spots where Roy would find them before long so that they never molded but were still _extremely_ unpleasant, and the noise of sheer distress he made when he opened the kitchen cabinet the other day had Ed in stitches, and then Roy was trying so hard not to laugh that there were actually tears in his eyes, and is it just too _much_? Ed tries not to ask for anything unreasonable; he tries not to be a burden; but this is the course of his life, isn’t it? When he loves something with his whole heart and soul, he always smothers it, somehow, and he always ends up here.

Roy opens his mouth, and Ed braces himself. He won’t shout. He won’t cry. They’re in a public place, and if it’s the last sad, tiny tribute he can make to all the fucking wonderful shit they’ve had over the last couple years, he won’t embarrass Roy in a restaurant.

Couldn’t he have done this at home? Couldn’t he have spared them both the agony of other people’s eyes in a moment like _thi_ —

“Ed,” Roy says, “do you want to get married?”

Ed’s brain, which one might recall had sixteen-hundred-miles-per-second speed, slams into a brick wall. It then falls over, lies very still, and makes a weak sort of moaning sound.

He thinks his eyelids, at least, are still operating normally, given that he seems to have blinked a dozen times in the silence.

Roy’s face crumples and then closes up, and Ed thinks _No, no, wait_ , but he can’t seem to locate his lungs.

“We certainly don’t have to,” Roy says, quickly, smoothly, in a boardroom-placation sort of voice. It’s one of his automatic tones; it’s one of the ways he protects himself. “I just thought—well, I was honestly just thinking of the terminology, if you can believe it; I just—the other day, I found myself thinking, ‘You know, Ed really is my better half, and wouldn’t it be nice…’, and… but of course it’s not _necessary_ ; I just thought… What we have now is perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it—I only—thought—just as a suggestion. That’s all. Never mind. Would you like dessert? Silly question; of course we’ll have dess—”

“Just no fucking military wedding,” Ed says. He has successfully recovered his voice, which had darted down below his stomach somewhere; his heart turned up in his throat, and the stupid thing won’t budge. “And I don’t want any weird people to be there. And we have to have a really good cake.” He tries to stop listening to the strange squishing sound that his blood makes rushing through his ears like that and pay attention to the rather fetching combination of bewilderment and burgeoning hope spreading over Roy’s face like a slow sunrise. “What else happens at weddings? I’ve never even been to one. I’m not wearing a dress. Isn’t there a dress? If you want a dress, _you_ can wear the dress; that’d be pretty great.”

Roy blinks so many times it looks a little like when he flutters his eyelashes, which he does pretty much every time Ed’s mad at him, which is frustrating as hell, because even when Ed’s worked up a really good rage, it pretty much disintegrates after that. “You… want me to wear a dress?” He shakes his head slightly, clearing his throat. “You— _want_ to get married. You want to get married to _me_.”

“Nah,” Ed says. “To the waiter. I want you to officiate, though, Führer Mustang. I _said_ nobody has to wear a dress. Why are we even talking about this?”

“An excellent question,” Roy says.

Ed keeps his mouth firmly shut, directing all possible brainpower to the problem of processing that this is even happening. When he _thinks_ he’s coming to terms with the concrete reality of _marrying Roy_ , he takes a breath.

“So… how do you want to go about the whole… thing?” he asks.

Roy grimaces slightly. “It is a fairly big _thing_ , isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be a big thing,” Ed says. “I mean, for starters, we’ve got, like, one parent between the two of us, so it shouldn’t be _too_ hard to keep the guest list to a single page.”

The grimace deepens. “We’re… going to have to send invitations. We’re going to have to pick a date. And a _venue_. And flowers. And food.”

“Dibs on the food,” Ed says.

Roy rubs at his temples with both hands. “Perhaps we should delegate this.”

“We can’t delegate our _wedding_ , you lazy _shit_ ,” Ed says, maybe a teensy bit too loud.

The waiter who had just ghosted up to their table freezes like he’s been caught in the headlights of a speeding train. “I—pardon the—interruption. I—dessert?”

“Yes, please,” Roy says, taking the promisingly large menu out of the guy’s unmoving, half-extended hand. “Thank you.” He opens it, raises an eyebrow, and passes it over to Ed. There’s, like, _eight_ pages. Jackpot. “And that’s ‘Führer Lazy Shit’ to you, dear.” He turns to the waiter and unleashes the Super Charming Smile of Doom. “Might I have a cup of tea, please? Anything that’s not too terribly potent—surprise me.”

The waiter nods helplessly and then remembers to fish out his notepad and scribble something down.

“Do I have to pick _one_?” Ed asks.

“Yes,” Roy says calmly. “I don’t want the sugar high hitting you at two in the morning again.”

“It happened _once_ ,” Ed says.

“And you were rambling about trigonometry until four-thirty,” Roy says, folding his hands into the endgame configuration—tragically, Ed knows all the variations by heart now. “I suspect you will live to see tomorrow if you only have one dessert.”

“But you’re not _sure_ ,” Ed says.

Roy gives him an imperious look undermined by the beginnings of a grin. “You may order _one_ dessert. When you’re finished, if you find yourself still teetering on the brink of starvation, you may order _one_ more.”

“Fucking dictator, this one,” Ed says to the waiter, gesturing with his thumb. “ _I_ didn’t vote for him.”

The waiter stares at him in terrified disbelief and swallows audibly. “I… did…”

“What a fine, intelligent young man,” Roy says. “Why don’t you give him your dessert order, Edward?”

“Everything sounds good,” Ed says. He hands the menu back. “Surprise me, too?”

“Sure,” the waiter says faintly. “Of course. I’ll… be right back with those. Are you still working on the plates?”

Ed’s has, like, three crumbs left on it. Roy’s is practically full.

“I’m quite finished, thank you,” Roy says.

When the waiter vanishes with them, Ed frowns across the table. “If your stomach growling wakes me up tonight, I’m gonna kick you.”

Roy meets his scowl with a blissful sort of smile. “I’ll try to eat something when we get home. I was so sick with nerves I couldn’t bear it.”

Ed wrings his napkin a little bit under the table to keep his hands occupied. “But—why? I mean, shit, what did you think I was gonna say?”

“Forever is a long time,” Roy says softly. “Forever with _me_ might well sound like an interminable prison sentence to some.”

“I dunno,” Ed says. “I think just about anybody’d jump at the chance of you and chains and a whole lot of alone time.”

Roy reaches his left hand across the table, and Ed grabs it tightly with his.

“I believe we can arrange for that, too,” he says.

“Awesome,” Ed says.

 

* * *

 

Ed raises a hand in greeting to all of the usual suspects as he weaves through the outer office, and then he knocks on Roy’s door. “It’s me.”

“Come in.”

Ed opens the door and slips inside. The Führer of Amestris is leaned back so far in his chair that even Ed’s unpracticed mechanical know-how can tell that the axle’s in danger, with his feet propped up on his desk and his legs crossed at the ankles, toying contemplatively with a small silver slinky.

“Gee,” Ed says. “I’m so glad the country is in such good hands.”

“You seemed to think they were perfectly adequate last night,” Roy says, grinning with just the _slightest_ hint of heat.

Ed tries to suppress the blush and fails. “Well—you—anyway. I called Winry. And I’m still a little deaf in my right ear from the screaming, so talk at this side. And she told me I should go get this, ’cause it’s the ‘definitive’… thing.”

Roy raises an eyebrow. “All… right.”

Ed unrolls the magazine he’s had tucked under his arm, tears off the newspaper he bought specifically to wrap it in so no one would see the _humiliating_ fucking cover, and holds it out, bracing himself for catastrophe.

Roy relinquishes his position of consummate procrastination in order to lean forward and take it. “Ah. _Modern Wedding_.”

“Everything in there is insanely fucking expensive,” Ed says, “but I figure we could probably alchemize just about all of it from cheaper materials, or whatever.” He shifts his weight, crumpling the last shreds of the newspaper in his metal hand. “I dunno. What do you think?”

Roy flips through the magazine. His eyebrow stays firmly arched halfway up his forehead. “I think the two of us may be ever-so-slightly ill-suited to the project of decorating for an event.”

Ed can’t help that he deflates a little. “I was thinkin’ the same thing.”

Roy puts the magazine down and folds his hands over it, looking at Ed with an unsettling little gleam in his eye. “I was also thinking I should grow some facial ha—”

“No,” Ed says.

“Just a mustache, perha—”

“ _No_.”

“Just a slender little one right here; it’d be very distingui—”

“Yo,” Ed says. “Try it and _see_ how much sex you get between now and death-do-us-part.”

“It’s very much in style,” Roy says, working up to a pretty solid pout. “Carefully cultivated, it adds an air of refinement to _any_ attire, and I would like to feel as confident as possible on the most important day of my life.”

Ed’s got eight or nine four-letter words rolling around in his mouth at the start of that, but then they all turn to dust. “Wait a second, what—what about your swearing in, and…?”

Roy smiles and spreads his hands to indicate the office. “However significant it may be, all of this is temporary. You and I are not.”

Ed has a little something in his eye. It may be a piece of railroad track, or possibly a hunk of quarry rock. “Okay. But I’m still putting my foot down on fuzzy face.”

Roy sighs feelingly. “The compromises I make for love are _astounding_.” He flips open the magazine again and gets this adorable kind of puzzled look. “I feel the only appropriate thing for me to do is to wear my dress uniform, but what would you like to wear?”

“I dunno,” Ed says. “Pants, at least. I’m supposed to wear a tux or something, right?”

“There’s no ‘supposed to’,” Roy says. “We can call the shots as much as we like.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, “but if we don’t start _somewhere_ , we’ll never pick _anything_. So… you and I are in black and white and then blue and gold, I guess.”

“Red,” Roy says, smiling at him again, which will never stop making Ed’s whole chest warm up. “You have to have some red on you. It is absolutely _your_ color.”

“Okay,” Ed says. He shoves his hands in his pockets and goes to peer at the magazine upside-down. “But we’re supposed to figure out a, like, theme color, right? So… red and blue make… purple.”

“Surely we can have multiple theme colors,” Roy says. “Why not red and yellow, then?”

“You’re not even going to be able to _see_ me against the décor if we do that,” Ed says.

“Hm,” Roy says.

“Fuck,” Ed says.

They stare at the magazine a little. Who _arranges_ these dumbass photo shoots anyway? The whole thing’s so wispy and fluttery and contrived it makes Ed feel like punching a unicorn.

“Shit,” Roy says.

“Yeah,” Ed says.

“Ed,” Roy says, meeting his eyes, “I’m serious. We should delegate this to someone who will actually be able to plan and successfully execute a complicated event in the time frame we’ve set.”

Hawkeye steps in without knocking before Ed can even open his mouth to protest. “I have Alphonse Elric waiting outside,” she says. She nods to the magazine. “Why don’t you let us take that off your hands before you hurt yourselves?”

“I am _not_ delegating our fucking _wedding_!” Ed says.

“Of course you’re not,” Al says, sidling in with his biggest, brightest, most heart-melting smile. “You’re just letting somebody else handle the icky little details that would frustrate you so much they might ruin the whole thing. It’s still yours and Roy’s, and you can still make all the real choices, and it’ll still reflect everything you want it to be. You’ll just feel better about it from start to finish. That’s all.”

Al should hypnotize people.

…well, he should _charge_ for it, since he already does.

“I guess…” Ed says weakly. “I guess you could… take… some of it… off our hands… I mean… Roy’s awfully busy, too, so…”

“Exactly,” Al chirps, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, Brother. Captain Hawkeye and I will take care of all of the nitty-gritty stuff, and you won’t have to worry about anything except showing up and eating cake.”

With the last of his power, Ed withholds concession for one more question: “Is it gonna be _good_ cake?”

“The _best_ ,” Al says.

“All right,” Ed says, handing Al the magazine, giving Roy an over-the-shoulder wave, and starting for the door. “You guys do your thing.”

“Yes, sir,” Al and Hawkeye say at once.

“A _hem_ ,” Roy says.

 

* * *

 

Ed gets caught up in a contractor project for Lieutenant-Colonel Ross; and then it rains for about ten billion years, and he holes up in Central’s biggest library and learns semaphore, sign language, basic Cretan, and that people write fiction about flying machines; and then Al’s doing some really interesting plant-alchemy stuff that he wants to check out; and then he finishes that paper he started two months ago on how Xerxesian architecture reflects alchemical geometry, even though he _really_ doubts anyone in their right mind will ever want to read it.

The night that he spent half the afternoon on the phone with the Publisher Guy—who has a name, which is on a card somewhere; and who has some weird idea in his head that saying “But you’re the Fullmetal Alchemist” counts as an argument for why people will read something when it is actually just a statement of fact—he collapses in bed next to Roy and doesn’t hold back the giant sigh of relief.

Roy strokes his hair back and then raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you realize,” he says, “that we’re getting married in three days?”

Somewhere in amongst all of the interesting stuff, Ed vaguely remembers trying on clothes and shrugging about flowers and colors and shit.

“Uh,” he says. “Are you sure?”

Roy laughs softly instead of wringing Ed’s neck, which is sort of why Ed wants to marry him in the first place. “Positive.”

“Oh,” Ed says. “Are we going on a honeymoon?”

“There’s a major tariff bill going to the Senate in a week,” Roy says, “and I’d like to be on the floor.” He tucks a lock of hair behind Ed’s ear and then follows its length all the way down Ed’s neck to his collarbone. “But I was thinking we could take day or two, at least—there’s a lake just a few hours out where we could be very alone indeed, and Captain Hawkeye is the only one who knows I’m considering it.”

Ed isn’t especially fond of lakes, cabins, or the prospect of several hours of Roy’s driving, but he is _very_ enamored of the thought of a couple days of getting Roy all to himself somewhere there wouldn’t be _any_ chance of reporters hearing them get it on.

“That sounds really nice,” he says. He prods Roy’s chest with his softer index finger. “And _you_ really need a break.”

“Guilty as charged,” Roy says.

Ed nestles in close to press their chests together and settles his face in against Roy’s throat.

“Jeez,” he says. “Three days?”

“Yes.”

“When the fuck did that happen?”

“I wish I knew.”

“You sure you wanna be stuck with me forever?”

“Rarely have I been surer of anything in my life.”

Ed kicks him in the shin—very, very gently. “You’re such a _sap_.”

“Which is, of course,” Roy says, “why you are _stuck_ with me.”

“Aw, shit,” Ed says. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

“I love you, too,” Roy murmurs, and he can probably feel Ed’s face getting all hot against his skin.

 

* * *

 

Ed’s wedding day (seriously, _what_ the _fuck_ ) dawns with a torrential downpour.

“Well,” Roy says, gazing out the window over the rim of his coffee cup, hair all sleep-tousled, eyes all blurry and smudged. They should just get married with him looking like _that_ and then have sex on the altar.

…that’s just Ed’s morning brain talking. Logically he knows that having sex in front of your wedding guests is _really_ bad form.

Roy saunters over to where Ed is lingering by the stove, a safe distance from the dastardly damp-cold waiting just past the windowpane. Roy’s mouth brushes over Ed’s forehead, and he automatically rises into the touch.

“I suppose it wouldn’t suit us if it wasn’t interesting,” Roy says.

“That’s a nice way of saying ‘What a fucking disaster’,” Ed says.

Roy grins. “I _am_ the country’s foremost diplomat, you know.”

 

* * *

 

They get showered and then get dressed, which is sort of, but not _totally_ , weird; and Roy manages to prevent Ed from strangling himself with the red tie that wants nothing more than his untimely demise; and then Roy turns up the biggest goddamn umbrella Ed’s ever seen, and they make a break for the car. As they drive, in between bouts of fearing for his life as the rain makes Roy swerve even more than his regular old incompetence does, Ed sits there and tries to come to terms with it.

He’s getting married.

He’s getting married to Roy Mustang, who runs the country—or at least Hawkeye lets him and everybody else think so.

He’s getting married to Roy Mustang _right now_ , to _day_ , and then he will be a married person; he will be a husband or a partner or a huspartner or something, and he will be moving into an entirely different category of life experience; and he will, definitively, once and for all, _belong_ to the man seated beside him.

It’s extremely surreal, and at the same time, it doesn’t feel strange at all.

 

* * *

 

Roy looks really fucking good in that stupid hat. His general sexiness, in fact, is so distracting that it’s making it very difficult for Ed to pay attention to what Al is saying.

“…managed to save the trellis,” Al sighs, gesturing, and Ed looks over for the first time at a strikingly beautiful wrought-iron arch completely _covered_ in fire lilies. “I suppose there’s no harm doing it here in the hall—we can just use the reception chairs, after all, if we move the tables aside…”

“It’s great, Al,” Ed says, and if his voice quavers a tiny bit, it’s just nerves, whether or not Roy puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently like maybe it’s something else.  “I mean, it’s—this place looks fucking amazing.  You guys are awesome.  We’re so… we’re really lucky to have you.  That’s all.”

Al flings both arms around him, and they cling to each other and suffer from a mild case of nerves together for a long moment before they part.

“Okay,” Ed says, taking deep breaths. “This is easy. We can just use alchemy to make the floor rise to a sharp angle in the middle, and all the tables will just slide out of the way. That’s what we’re going for, right? Like, an aisle or something?”

Al and Hawkeye very slowly turn towards each other. They seem to be holding up a very detailed conversation despite the fact that neither of them has uttered a word, which is _damn_ creepy.

“Brother,” Al says in an extremely pleasant voice, “why don’t you look around and see some of the other interesting things we put together for today?”

“Well, I wanna help move stuff,” Ed says.

“That’s what groomsmen are for,” Al says. “You and Roy just relax. We’ll take care of everything. No floors need to get alchemically rearranged so dramatically that we lose our deposit. Okay?”

Ed starts to say something about how he _isn’t_ little and therefore should inspire much larger amounts of faith, but right then Roy takes his left elbow—gently, but with the _slightest_ hint of… other stuff. Strength. Possessiveness. That sort of thing. And Ed sort of loses his whole train of thought, somewhere out on a dark siding at an abandoned station in the rain, and doesn’t especially miss it.

“Whoa,” Ed says as his eyes light on a wide, glass-topped counter that’s been installed against the far wall.  “What the hell is that?”

“My mother’s wedding gift to us,” Roy says, steering him over, sounding amused and exasperated and rather fond all at once.  “She is supplying and staffing the open bar, because, and I quote, ‘Anyone watching you fawn over that kid for a whole night is going to need a stiff drink’.”

“You don’t _fawn_ ,” Ed says.  He plops down on one of the bar stools and spins around experimentally.  _Great_ axle on this thing.

“Thank you,” Roy says, stepping behind the counter and sorting through the offerings.  “That’s what I said.”

“Dote, maybe,” Ed says.  “Develop all-new smooshy pet names because the canon of existing ones is insufficient to describe your smooshiness.”

Roy folds his arms on the bar and grins.  “Did you know it’s illegal to defame the Führer?”

“Not anymore,” Ed says.  “You struck that down, remember?”

“Shit,” Roy says.  “You’re right.  This— _this_ —is my reward for championing democracy.  Someday they’ll write a tragic opera about me.”

“I’ll make sure to sit in the front row and laugh uncomfortably loudly,” Ed says.

“Can I get you a drink, my dear?” Roy says.  “Not least with the goal of shutting you up?”

“Please,” Ed says.  “I think Al’s gonna ban me from my own wedding if I keep fidgeting.”

“Scotch cures the fidgets,” Roy says, hefting a bottle.

“Bullshit,” Ed says.

“Of course,” Roy says.  “But delivered with such panache that you _wanted_ to believe it, if only for a moment.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Ed says.

“Anything worth doing,” Roy says, setting his hat down on the countertop, “is worth doing with style.”

Ed’s about to argue with that—and he’s got enough points to the contrary that he could _probably_ kill enough time to get them all the way into the start of the ceremony with the rant—but then Roy’s spinning the bottle and flipping it and tossing it from behind his shoulder to catch it in his other hand and twirling a gleaming crystal glass he summoned from nowhere, and then he’s whipping amber liquid into it and slinging it down the tiny bar to Ed.

“Aw, shit,” Ed says, hearing his own breath catch in his throat.  He pushes the drink out of the way—with his left hand, trying to be _relatively_ careful, as much as his animal brain will allow—and then fists both hands in the front of Roy’s uniform and drags him in close— “Take me _now_ , Mustang, _shit_ —”

Roy breathes a soft, hot laugh against his lips, winding a few fingers into his hair, curling them tight, and using the leverage to tilt his head back just a _little_ , just _barely_ exposing his throat— “Hold that thought until tonight.”

Ed says something to the effect of “ _Gnnnghhh_.”

“Oh! You’re just in time!” Al is calling to someone across the room. Ed thinks there will always be a thread between his heart and Al’s—a thousand threads, really, from his heart to every _part_ of Al, every piece, every trait, every action. A burst of filaments like spiders’ silk, stretching from his soul out to that bright-eyed, smiling boy, so that every movement Al makes tugs on him and tows him towards that light. He could zero in on Al in a crowd of millions. He went to hell and back—more than once—and he’d do it again without a thought. “Come on in!”

The rest of Roy’s team look, Ed has to admit, snappy as _hell_ in their tuxes as they file in. Fuery’s pushing a huge gramophone, and none of the others have come empty-handed, either; Falman is carrying a box of records, and Havoc and Breda have their arms full of gauzy red and yellow fabric.

“Wait,” Ed says.  “You’re going to mummify us and bury us in a ditch?  Some wedding present.”

“Damn,” Breda says.  “Should’ve known he’d figure it out.  Quick, before the Führer gets his gloves on.”

Roy goes over to the nearby cart stacked with trays of gleaming silverware and selects a few very sharp-looking pieces.  “Why dirty my gloves when there are so _many_ dessert forks to eviscerate you with?”

“Boys,” Hawkeye says, “we only have two hours before guests are due to start arriving.  I humbly suggest that we save all evisceration and related instances of gory violence for _after_ the reception.”

Havoc sighs, plops his load of fabric down one of the chairs, and stretches his arms as high over his head as the structured shoulders of the tux will allow.  “Man, weddings are way more fun when everybody’s trying to murder everybody else.  You should’ve seen my cousin’s—I thought there was gonna be a _bloodbath_.  Becky and I were just hiding in the corner with some hors d’oeuvres, constantly reassuring each other that we both were packing heat.”

“You brought _guns_ to a _wedding_?” Fuery asks, staring.

Havoc opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Hawkeye sets a stepladder in front of him.  “Fortune,” she says, “favors the prepared.  Even at weddings.”

“Especially at weddings,” Havoc says. “After all, Becky and I first started talking—like _really_ talking—back when Lieutenant-Colonel Yevin invited us both to—”

“We know,” everyone in the room says in impeccable unison.

“O _kay_ ,” Havoc says, rubbing at the back of his neck.  “ _Jeez_.”

“Perhaps,” Hawkeye says, “we should focus on the wedding at hand?”

Of all of the innumerable things that Ed admires about Hawkeye, perhaps the single most impressive is her uncanny ability to command immediate action with what is ostensibly just a suggestion.

In mere moments, the whole team is unfolding ladders and clambering up them, trailing the rolls of fabric.  Mere moments after that, the first billowing sheet has been secured to the ceiling—looped, by the looks of it, through a tiny hook on one of the beams.  The whole thing quickly becomes a ruthlessly efficient operation: Breda relocates the ladder; Havoc clambers up; Fuery doles out several feet of fabric; and Falman hands it up to Havoc.  Hawkeye stands a little ways aside and indicates where the ladder should go so that they’re distributed evenly along the ceiling.  Ed can’t bring himself to do much of anything except watch in awe as they blitz the whole damn room.

“How come they’re never this good when they’re doing what _you_ tell ’em?” he asks Roy.

“I’m sorry,” Roy says.  “My administration advises me not to discuss internal affairs with members of the public.”

“ _Members_ of the _public_?” Ed says. “Just _see_ if you get laid tonight, talking like that.”

“I’m fairly confident I will,” Roy says. “You tend to be very… suggestible after champagne.”

There’s a long pause. Ed can feel the heat climbing in his face.

“You mean ‘easy’,” Ed says. “You mean I’m easy when I’m drunk.”

“That’s not what I said,” Roy says.

“Fucking _politicians_ ,” Ed says.

“Hopefully you’ll only be fucking one tonight,” Roy says.

As much as Ed ever hates that Roy is such a goddamn _word weasel_ , he sort of can’t help but get drawn into the charm.

“Yeah, well,” he says, “you’re gonna have to earn it.”

Roy’s grin makes his blood quicken. “I intend to.”

“ _Brother_!” Al calls from where he’s dragging tables around on the other side of the room. “Start on the silverware! And do it _right_!”

“Okay, jeez!” Ed shouts back. Al should know way better than to think he’d forget how to set a table after all the times they fought over who got to do it for Mom, anyw… “What the hell is this?”

There’s a big basket of regular silverware, and a smaller basket where half of the utensils’ handles end in little stamped-in flame arrays, and the other half end in flamels.

“Those are for your table,” Al says. “The rest are rented, but those I bought and customized myself, so you can keep them.”

Ed is not going to cry. Ed is _not_ going to cry.

“Thank you, Alphonse,” Roy says, touching Ed’s shoulder very gently in the way that means _I will cover and distract everyone for as long as you need; take your time_ , and in that moment Ed loves him so ferociously that it makes the sting of tears a little worse. “That’s very kind of you.”

Ed pulls himself together and grabs a fistful of forks from the bigger basket. “You’re such an overachiever, Al.”

“You’re only going to get married once,” Al says calmly. “I want it to be perfect.”

Ed focuses very intently on the silverware, and if Roy hovers a bit closer by his shoulder than is strictly necessary to assist him, no one makes any comments.

They’ve just barely succeeded in rearranging the chairs into something like two segments with an aisle when some unspecified summons makes the guests start _pouring_ in.

After that, Ed’s got his arms full—of _people_. Winry almost knocks him to the ground, and then Sig Curtis lifts him about four feet off of it, and Teacher pats his ankle in greeting, because it’s the only thing she can reach right this second.

People keep appearing in the doorway and then rushing forward to wrap him into a hug or shake his hand so hard his elbow feels like jelly—Sheska has a pencil in her pocket that almost punctures his lung when she squeezes the breath out of him; Lieutenant-Colonel Ross and Lieutenant Brosh both try to hug him at once and end up with one arm each; Rebecca gives him a giant, sloppy, wet kiss on the cheek, winks, and murmurs “You think maybe Jean’ll get a clue?”; Granny stares him down for an incredibly long, unnerving moment before she cracks a wide grin and says “I have never seen you look so handsome, Ed.”

Roy is greeting people, too, with that sort of graceful cordiality that he can make look _easy_. He must feel Ed’s gaze on him, because he turns, and smiles, and Ed’s heart goes all messy-gloopy-soft. Then he comes over and settles the palm of one hand against the side of Ed’s neck, thumb stroking gently at Ed’s jaw.

“We have a tremendous amount of friends,” he says.

“I was thinking that,” Ed says. “I hope Al remembered that some of ’em are chimeras when he planned the menu.”

Roy grins, and then he glances at the door, and he grins a little more.

It’s Gracia and Elysia, dressed to the nines, looking like a pair of visions, and _jeez_ , what Ed wouldn’t give for Hughes to be here, too.

Roy’s all over it and oozing charm, of course.

“Good after _noon_ ,” he says, taking Elysia’s hand first and bowing low to kiss it and look up at her through his eyelashes. Elysia goes _bright_ red, and Ed fights hard to swallow a laugh—she’s twelve now, which is about the age _he_ first started crushing on Roy freakin’ Mustang. The girl’s got good taste on top of everything else. “I knew we’d invited a princess from Xing, but I hadn’t realized we’d found one from Amestris, too.”

“You’re terrible,” Ed says. The pink in Elysia’s cheeks has deepened a little, but she manages to shake the stars from her eyes long enough to catapult onto Ed with a hug. “Hey, kid!” he says, trying not to mess up her hair. “How’s school?”

Roy’s hugging Gracia in the meantime while Elysia starts going on about how they don’t teach nearly enough alchemy and maybe one of her surrogate big brothers could help her…?, and then Roy touches Gracia’s elbow and turns to clasp another woman’s hand in both of his. She’s kinda nice-looking—about Roy’s age, short brown hair in a bob cut, dressed all in black, seems vaguely nervous.

“Edward,” Roy says, beckoning him over, “this is Beverly Masenca—the justice I was telling you about.”

“Uh,” Ed says, “hi.”

Exactly what are you supposed to say in this situation? _Hey, I hear you’re pretty cool; thanks for agreeing to show up and declare that we’re legally married in front of a bunch of people you don’t know._

“Good afternoon,” Beverly Masenca says. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Ed says helplessly.

“Oh, good,” Al says, coming up on Ed’s other side and checking something off on a clipboard. Ever the great multitasker, is Al: he’s also gnawing on his lip, scanning the room, and tapping his foot a lot. “I think we’re just about ready to start—Captain Hawkeye went to change, and _almost_ everybody’s here—” He flips back to the first page, frowns around the room, and knocks the end of his pencil against the clipboard in a slightly frantic tattoo. “I swear I saw… How can someone so _big_ be hard to find—?”

Before Ed can even ask who they’re talking about, he gets a viciously sharp elbow in the ribs that would probably double him over if he wasn’t used to that sort of shit.

“Hey, shorty!” Paninya says brightly. Apparently her idea of getting dressed up for a wedding is putting on some slacks instead of her camo pants and tying a bow in her hair. Ed has to admit, though—he probably would’ve done about the same if it wasn’t for Al. “Hurry up and get the sappy stuff over with so we can _eat_!”

“You’re a menace to society,” Ed says, returning the way-too-tight hug. “Thanks for coming.”

Roy looks _delighted_ as Ed draws back, winces, and rubs at his permanently dented ribcage, because Roy is a sadist. “I suppose perhaps we should get started, if only so that none of our dear friends starve to death in the meantime.”

Paninya jabs her thumb at Roy, grinning. “See? That’s why I voted for this guy.”

“ _I_ didn’t,” Ed says.

Roy sighs, rather loudly. “The things we do for love… apparently do not extend to the ballot.”

“Captain!” Al says, and then Al says, “Oh—um— _Captain_.”

Ed turns pretty fast at _that_ reaction, only to find that it’s completely merited, because Hawkeye looks fucking _stunning_ in a red dress and a black tuxedo jacket. Roy’s groomsmen, who are all wearing red silk waistcoats with their matching jackets, all go very, very still, as if they’re seeing something they shouldn’t be.

Hawkeye claps Al on the shoulder briskly on her way over to the trellis-thing, where she takes up what must be the Best Woman position next to the lectern and raises an eyebrow.

Al shoves his clipboard into a flower arrangement, hastily buttons his yellow waistcoat, and darts over to stand opposite her.

Roy’s team snaps to pretty speedily after that, and Winry (who looks pretty darn great in her yellow dress, it can’t be denied) goes over to join Al, and then there’s a whole line of people Ed loves half to death standing up there on either side of the trellis, and Beverly Masenca gets up there and opens a book on the lectern, and Roy turns to Ed and offers him a hand.

And that’s where they started, isn’t it? And that’s never going to change.

So they go up there, linked together, and Roy takes both of Ed’s hands in his, and the room goes remarkably quiet, and Beverly Masenca says, “We’re all here today to bear witness to the union of two people. As one of them happens to be the ruling authority of this country—”

Awkward laughter from a few people who don’t recognize Roy’s sense of humor is, as it turns out, pretty much the best wedding present Ed could ask for.

“—and has asked me to, and I quote, ‘Keep the boring part brief so that there’s time for Ed to have a second slice of cake’, I’m going to do my best to make this quick. I have worked with Führer Mustang for a while now, although I doubt I’ve known him anywhere near as long as most of you have known one of these two gentlemen. It’s very likely that many of you saw the very beginning of the love that has brought us all here on this not-especially-sunny afternoon. I didn’t. The Roy Mustang that I know has always had Edward. The Roy Mustang that I know has always talked about him in a _slightly_ different voice than any other topic of conversation. The Roy Mustang I know relies on him, depends on him, and absolutely cherishes him.”

Ed is going to die of happiness and embarrassment at the same time. Will that be a first? Roy’s grinning, the _bastard_.

“I have only known Edward for about five minutes,” Beverly Masenca says, “but about five seconds was enough to confirm my suspicion that the feeling—or the wealth of feelings; a _fortune’s_ worth of feelings—is entirely mutual. So as far as _I_ know…” Ed dares to glance over, and Beverly Masenca smiles. “The love right here before us is and always has been an inviolable fact. They might as well already be married—marriage, as I hope many of you happily know, is about the trust, devotion, dedication, and support that are founded in a love like this one. But while we’re all here in any case, we might as well make it official, don’t you think?”

Ed’s changed his mind. He’s not going to die; he’s just going to kill _Roy_ for doing this to him.

It really is a shame; the bastard his heart beats for looks _so_ good in that stupid hat.

“Führer Mustang,” Beverly Masenca says, “is there anything you’d like to say?”

“Yes, thank you,” Roy says, although he hasn’t looked away from Ed’s eyes in… about since they got up here, actually. “Ed,” he says, “there is nothing in the vast world that I would rather do than wake up next to you—and be a martyr about fishing your hair out of the shower drain—every day for the rest of my life.”

Ed is trying to figure out the best order in which to kill Roy and also cry. It’ll be hard to kill Roy effectively if he’s crying; it’ll mess up his aim.

“Edward?” Beverly Masenca says.

“You are a _bastard_ ,” Ed says to the love of his life in front of all of his friends. “And you are _damned_ lucky I like it that way. And you are _really_ damned lucky that I love every single stupid day with you, even the bad ones, more than I’ve got words for, and the whole idea of _forever_ is kind of beyond describing.”

“I know,” Roy says, beaming at him. “Jean, would you be so kind?”

There’s some fumbling in Ed’s peripheral vision past Roy’s hat, and then there’s silence, and then there’s a very faint noise of great distress.

“Jean,” Roy says in an extremely calm voice, “please tell me you did not _lose_ the rings.”

“Lose—” Havoc’s voice has never sounded so high and terrified in as long as Ed has known him. “— _‘lose’_ is such a strong word, sir; maybe something like—‘misplace’—?”

For the first time since the night at the restaurant—which makes for the second time in a _hell_ of a long while—Roy looks… scared.

His grip on Ed’s hands tightens, and a disconcerted murmur ripples around the room, and Havoc sounds like he’s gulping in air that he’s going to use to start sobbing in a second.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Ed says. “Really?”

Roy blinks at him, and Ed grins and squeezes his hands, and then there’s a little ray of hope breaking through the fear, and Ed just… always wants to be that. That’s the thing.

“Hey, Winry,” he says. “You got any silver on you? Platinum, maybe?”

“I can’t believe you,” Winry says. “Why would you _assume_ I’d have my pockets full or scrap metal at a _wedding_?”

Ed turns to look at her.

She holds up the pout for three more seconds before rolling her eyes and digging into a pocket, from which she turns up a pretty good selection of assorted little metal things.

“I love you, Win,” Ed says.

“Shut up and get married already,” Winry says, picking two little shiny pieces from the small collection in the palm of her hand.

Ed takes them, trying not to grin so hard he breaks his face. “All right, all _right_. What’s the composition here?”

“It’s your lucky day, stupid,” Winry says contentedly. “Sterling silver. That’s a classic. Didn’t you read _Modern Wedding_?”

“Funny story about that,” Ed says, curling his left hand around the metal for a moment, feeling his pulse beat. “I’ll tell you later.”

Beverly Masenca obligingly moves her book—which, as far as he can tell, is just for show anyway—clear of the lectern so that Ed can set the metal down, take one last gauging glance at Roy’s extremely familiar fingers in their gloves, and clap and touch his hands to the first little scrap of silver.

It’s easy, too, because alchemy is all _about_ the full circle, the infinite curve, the completion, the self-contained configuration—that is, the ring.

“Okay,” he says, wrapping his prize into his left hand again to warm it while he waits. “Your turn.”

“Oh, good,” Roy says. “I have always so wanted to follow the world’s premiere alchemist in an act of improvisation in front of a crowd.”

“You could always start a fire and, like, _forge_ it,” Ed says.

Roy gives him a withering look, which lasts for about a second and a half before they both start laughing.

It’s kind of funny, too, that there might be people in this room who have never seen Roy Mustang get the giggles over a stupid joke. A lot of the time, that’s a privilege reserved for Ed and Ed alone.

Roy shakes his head, peels off his gloves, pockets them, and draws a deep breath.

“It’s simple,” Ed says, very quietly, nudging Roy’s elbow with his right hand. “This is a purer distribution of molecules than you usually deal with. Don’t think about it too much.”

“If I muck it up colossally,” Roy says, “will you fix it?”

“No,” Ed says. “I’ll wear it, and I’ll be fucking proud.”

Roy smiles at him—the realest, warmest, brightest, eye-crinkliest of the billion smiles in the smile arsenal—and then touches his palms together and presses his fingertips to the silver.

For all of the bitching and moaning, in Ed’s fairly practiced opinion, the ring is pretty close to perfect.

“Well, then,” Beverly Masenca says. “Führer Mustang, do you take Edward Elric to be your lawfully-wedded husband, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

“I most certainly do,” Roy says.

“Edward—”

“You’re damn right I do,” Ed says.

“Excellent,” Beverly Masenca says. “It’s done.” She gestures, and Roy takes Ed’s hand, and maybe it’s shaking a _little_ , but that’s just because there’s an _audience_ ; it has nothing to do with the _Holy shit, this is_ mine _, forever, forever, forever_ , spiraling endlessly in Ed’s brain.

Roy slips the cold little ring onto his finger, and it fits like—well, like it was made for him. And Ed has a moment of entirely irrational panic that the one he made won’t, but the only thing he knows better than Roy’s hands is Roy’s heart, and _damn_ if Roy’s finger wasn’t designed specifically to wear Ed’s claim to him; it looks _good_ there. It looks _right_.

“You may—” Beverly Masenca says, but Ed doesn’t hear the rest, because he’s flinging his arms around Roy’s neck, and Roy has one hand buried in his hair and the other arm around the back of his waist, and Ed’s sort of anti-exhibitionist most of the time, but he has to admit that the _cheer_ that goes up in the _whole fucking room_ gives him one _hell_ of a rush.

When he draws back, he can barely hear himself think over the roar of his blood in his ears and the banging of his heart in his chest, but who needs thinking anyway?

“Do we get cake now?” he asks.

“Yes,” Roy says. “Yes, we do.”

“Well,” Al says, “you would if we could _find_ the cake.”

Ed whirls to look at him, and Al is grimacing in a way that makes it pretty clear he’s _not_ joking.

“The cake is gone,” Al says, and there’s a flash of deep and genuine distress across his face that makes Ed’s heart crumple a little bit; it’s not _Al’s_ fault; Al’s perfect; he— “I was waiting to tell you. I’m not sure what happened, since it was right _there_ , but when I checked in the back a few minutes ago, it… wasn’t right there anymore.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Roy says. “Who in the world would _steal_ a _wedding cake_?”

Al is apparently in agreement, since he appears to have _murder_ in his eyes, and Ed’s about to grab his shoulder and find some way to convince him that it’s okay when there’s a _giant_ shadow in the doorway, and somebody gasps.

In the doorway, on a trolley, shuddering slowly into the room, is the biggest fucking cake Ed has ever _seen_.

It is at least six feet tall, with a dozen tiered layers blanketed in little white piped flowers; it’s being pushed along with no small amount of difficulty by some dude wearing a wrist cuff, with a huge military jacket slung over his shoulder; and it’s slightly… lopsided?

“What,” Ed says, “the _shit_ , Al?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Al says. “That isn’t the cake that Captain Hawkeye and I—”

Roy’s hand clenches too tight around Ed’s arm, and he’s being yanked backwards, and Roy’s in front of him, and the nearest side of the cake is _crumbling_ —

And Armstrong bursts out.

Bits of cake fly _everywhere_ , raining down on the floor and splattering the closest guests, and Ed’s insatiable morbid curiosity makes him lean around Roy’s protectively outstretched arm to watch in mortified fascination as Armstrong, who is _covered_ in frosting, strikes a pose.

The dude who was pushing the trolley has both arms raised in an unmistakable gesture of absolute triumph and seems to be doing a small victory dance. Who _invited_ that guy?

“What a truly momentous occasion!” Armstrong booms before Ed can think about it too much. “The sanctified, loving union of two noble souls, commemorated this day, sealed with undying affection, witnessed by so many who care for, follow, adore, and respect one or both of these magnificent men—it’s enough to bring a longtime friend—” His voice quavers mightily. “—to the brink—of _tears_ —!”

“Alex,” Roy says, gripping Ed’s arm again and propelling them slowly backwards, “let’s remember that you just came out of a ca—”

It’s too late.

Like a striking cobra Armstrong descends, weeping freely, and wraps Roy and Ed together up into a suffocating and extremely sticky hug.

“ _Alex_ —” Roy wheezes. “Thank—you—that’s—enough—”

And that’s when, over the disconcertingly faint noises of his own futile struggling, Ed hears the shutter snap.

He looks down.

Apparently Elysia takes after her dad as far as the obsession with awkward photos.

Just as Ed is starting to see white spots in his vision, the incredible pressure lets up, and he and Roy are tumbling to the floor as Armstrong releases them in favor of some more vigorous sobbing.

Roy grasps Ed’s shoulders to steady him. “Are you all ri—”

“I’m dying,” Ed says. “The only cure is cake. But not _that_ cake.”

“I found it!” Havoc cries from the doorway. “The real cake! It just got moved out of the way! Please don’t kill me over the rings?”

“My hero,” Ed says. He glances over at Roy. “Don’t _pout_ ; I didn’t _mean_ it. Havoc? _Really_?” Roy’s trying not to grin and mostly failing. For good measure, Ed drags a hand down the front of his uniform and arches an eyebrow. “I only want him for his cake. Whereas I want _you_ for a hell of a lot more later tonight, _sir_.”

The ‘sir’ is a silver bullet. Always has been. Ed has no complaints.

Roy lifts his fancy hat off, fluffs his hair, and settles the hat on Ed’s head instead.

“Let’s use him for his cake, then,” he says. “After that you’re all mine.”

“That’s the deal,” Ed says, settling his palm against the side of Roy’s neck and pressing in enough that Roy will feel the ring. “Isn’t it?”

Roy kisses him again, and a couple people go “ _Awww_ ,” which probably means they can’t see what Roy’s doing with his tongue.

 

* * *

 

So there’s cake.

And Al wasn’t kidding; it’s the _best_ cake.

Ed manages to decimate two full pieces before Roy lays a hand on his arm.

Honestly, it’s more than he expected he’d get before the _we both know what happens when you’re hopped up on sugar and it isn’t pretty_ speech, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make Roy _earn_ it.

“You,” he says, “are a despot of dessert.”

Roy leans in to kiss the tip of his nose.  “And your lawfully-wedded husband, who sincerely carries your best interests as close as possible to his heart.”

Ed wrinkles his nose as much as he can without compelling Roy to move away, since he would like for that to happen… never.  Yeah, an uninterrupted eternity of Roy’s dumb little affectionate gestures sounds pretty damn good.  “I still dunno how I feel about ‘husband’.  It’s kind of… stuffy.”

“It’s a bit more polite than ‘legally-sanctioned life companion with the bonus of lots of sex’,” Roy says.

“Lots and lots,” Ed says.

“Or ‘designated collector of your used bath towels’,” Roy says.  “Or ‘high priest of the religion of your hair’.”

“I guess that makes me the ‘primary putter-upper with your shit’,” Ed says.

Roy beams at him, and god _damn_ , that grin still makes his whole chest tighten like his ribcage is shrinking, and the heat inside him has nowhere to escape.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“This is crap,” Ed says.  “I can’t tell you to stop being sappy at your own wedding.”

“Oh, this is my _chance_ ,” Roy says, and there is a wild and terrible light in his eyes.  Before Ed can run, Roy’s hands are at his waist, and he’s being swung gently around and around and then towards the dance floor, and— “Edward, my darling, my treasure, my reason for being, my beautiful golden light—”

“ _Barf_ ,” Ed says, and he could stabilize himself perfectly adequately by gripping Roy’s shoulders, but… why not humor him and knit both hands behind his neck, just this once?

“Look at this,” Roy’s going on; “look at all these people who came here to celebrate how hopelessly devoted I am to your every breath; we have chosen an entire _day_ to dedicate to our dedication—”

“You probably shouldn’t spin me around and over-schmoop me at the same time,” Ed says.  “I really am going to throw up on your shoes.”

“I even love your vomit,” Roy says, though he _almost_ cracks this time.  “Look at this huge, wonderful room and all of these wonderful people—and really, the whole thing is unnecessary, because all I want is _you_ , to touch you and hold you and look at you, and you have granted me the right to do that every day for the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, and if he’s clinging a little now, it’s clearly a coincidence.  “I guess we can pitch the wedding presents, since I’ve got everything I want.”

Roy grins that goddamn grin, leans down, and kisses him, and kisses him, and drags one of those marvelous hands slowly up his spine until it can reach to tug his hair.

“Then again,” the Führer of Amestris says as he draws back, cheeks flushed, mouth deliciously swollen, “why not have unmitigated domestic bliss _and_ a new toaster?”

Ed wonders how many of the people in this room realize—how many _really_ understand—that he’s the luckiest person alive.

“Good point,” he says.

“And every time we make toast with it,” Roy says, “we can remember our beautiful wedding.  And every single time we finish with breakfast, we can consummate our marriage again.”

“Just in case,” Ed says.

“Can’t be too careful with these things,” Roy says.

Ed grins, perhaps a _bit_ lasciviously, and Roy leans down to kiss him, and several observers coo again, which is hilarious—although Ed supposes it’s probably a good thing that they’re taking it out of context, given that anyone who eavesdropped on his and Roy’s sex life would deserve the taste of cardiac arrest that they’d probably get.

“Okay,” Ed says.  “Hold that thought.  I’m gonna go find Al and make sure his brain hasn’t exploded, and he hasn’t strangled anyone, and he doesn’t need anything.  I’d say the same for Captain Hawkeye, but I don’t think she _does_ stress.”

“Not in the conventional sense,” Roy says, “though the firing range targets might disagree.”  He pushes the hat back to kiss Ed’s forehead.  “I’ll try to say hello to all of the people you wouldn’t want to meet.”

Ed can’t stop smiling.  It kind of hurts.

“Jeez,” he says.  “I love you.  Like, I _really_ love you.”

It sounds sort of stupid like that, but he’s never had the too-easy facility for words that Roy does.

By the marvelous warmness of his eyes, though, it looks like Roy gets the point.

“And you,” he says, and Ed hugs him tightly and then runs off in search of a certain wayward Elric brother.

His search for a slender figure topped with perfect honey-wheat-brown-gold-gorgeous hair takes him past one of the dinner tables, where a familiar face is flanked by two he’s never seen before.

It was very generous of Colonel Miles to come all the way out on behalf of the Briggs crew, and it doesn’t look like he’s being rewarded particularly well for his kindness—the dude who was carrying Armstrong’s coat is seated slightly too close on his left, and a very drunk girl with smudged eyeliner is starting to slump in against his right arm.

“But how do you feel,” the coat-carrying dude says, raising both hands and gesturing outward, “about _blonds_.”

“With _accents_ ,” the drunk girl says, prodding Miles’s bicep repeatedly with a finger.  “And _sweaters_.”

  


further reasons that [Phindus](http://phindus.tumblr.com) is the best: originally posted [here](http://phindus.tumblr.com/post/73915714792/tierfal-panda-its-here-your-christmas-fic)  


Ed is considering intervening until he remembers that Miles could—and has—faced down a tank, and two weird alchies that Ed doesn’t remember inviting probably aren’t even a blip on the radar for an officer of Briggs.  He also spots Al sitting at the bar with Roy’s mother, which is a little disconcerting to say the least.

When he sidles up, however, they seem to be talking about cats, rather than world domination, so that’s a plus.

Madame Christmas grins her _maybe-you’re-fucked-maybe-you’re-not_ grin at Ed, which is the best cure he’s yet found for ever sleeping again.  “Hey, there, sport.  Still time to back out, y’know.  I can arrange for a getaway car if you want.”

“I think I’m all right,” Ed says, “but thanks.  Al, are you _drinking_?  You don’t _drink_.  You swore off ‘deliberate debilitating body poison’ after that time with the body paint and the—”

“Yes, I remember,” Al says, swilling his drink.  “And, for your information, this is a virgin cocktail.”

Madame Christmas sighs happily.  “I will _never_ get tired of that combination of words.”

Sometimes you can see the relation between her and Roy a little _too_ well.

“Okay, fine,” Ed says.  “But you don’t look like you’re having fun.”

“I am,” Al says calmly.  “Well, I was.  I’m taking a break.  I like watching you and Roy, though; you’re positively sickening.  It almost makes me want to fall in love, but I’m concerned I’d get cavities.”

“Al,” Ed says slowly, “are you okay?”

“I’m far more than simply okay,” Al says, but his eyes dart to the left—just once, so fast that Ed almost misses it, but once is enough.  “I’m magnificent.  It’s just that I was up half the night getting those silly centerpieces to be perfect, and then I had to get up again at the crack of dawn to go chase down the baker for a cake that almost _disappeared_ , and—”

“Al,” Ed says, “nothing’s going to change.”

Al blinks, blinks some more, and swallows.  “What… do you mean?”

“Us,” Ed says.  “I mean, this whole marriage… thing… is really just sort of a formality.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’m not going to be, like, draped over Roy’s feet writing fucking paeans to his boots now just because we signed a piece of paper and jury-rigged some jewelry.  I’m still _me_ , and I’m still your big brother, and… well, jeez, Al, I could get married to a million people, and you’d still be my flesh and my blood and my soul, okay?”

Without any warning except a welling of his eyes, Al flings both arms around Ed’s neck and starts sobbing into his shoulder.

It takes Ed a few seconds to process this turn of events before he has the presence of mind to hug back.

He catches Christmas’s eye and mouths: “Are you _sure_ he’s not drunk?”

Christmas shrugs.

 

* * *

 

Al accompanies Ed doing the rounds of the room trying to say _hi_ and _thanks_ and _did you get enough cake_ to everybody.  He’s still carrying his clipboard, which seems to have some stray foliage trailing from it now. When they’ve done a pretty good circuit of the whole room, Ed releases a rather pent-up sigh and starts looking around for Roy.

“Brother,” Al says. Ed turns just in time to see him making some sort of hand motion towards the dance floor, which…? “Don’t mind that. I was just thinking—wouldn’t it be a lovely keepsake if you kept one of the flower arrangements?”

“Uh,” Ed says. Crap, Al at _least_ picked out all the flowers; knowing him, he might have made every single one of the arrangements himself because the florist wasn’t good enough. “They’re really nice and all, but…”

“Here,” Al says, snatching a bouquet out of one of the pots and pushing it at him. “You can take it home and dry it; it’ll be lovely. Or you could press it. Or—”

“Al, it’s really okay,” Ed says, trying not to let the stems wind up in his hand, but Al is _damned_ good at this. “Al—”

“Come on,” Al says, “just one. You’ve got such a terrible memory for things like this; won’t you want it later?”

“ _No_ ,” Ed says. It’s in his hands, but— “I won’t need it, Al, _jeez_ , you don’t think I’m going to remember _this_? It’s my own goddamn _wedding_ , for fuck’s sake.”

“You’ve been into the champagne already,” Al says. “I saw you. You’ll forget the details, and then you’ll wish you’d listened to me.”

“I will _not_ ,” Ed says. “I don’t _need_ it, Al.”

“Fine,” Al says, sniffing. “If that’s what you want, then you might as well just toss it over your shoulder and be _done_ with the whole thing.”

Ed glowers at him for a second before realizing that actually following through will probably break the ice—good slapstick is one of Al’s secret weaknesses.

“I will, then,” he says, and he waits until Al glares before he hurls it backwards blindly.

A few things occur to him in rapid succession: first, that throwing objects in a crowded room without looking is not an especially fine idea; second, that, in light of the first, Al’s accusation about the champagne may be just; third, upon the onset of the screaming, that he just walked into the most obvious trap ever set by an Elric.

“Oh, you _fucker_ ,” he says to his beautiful baby brother.

Al is grinning ear-to-ear as Rebecca Catalina howls her triumph at ear-splitting volume, clutching her prize.

“Lighten up, Ed,” Al says. “Throwing the bouquet is traditional, and everyone always loves it. It was obvious that you’d never _agree_ to do it, so I just… helped you along a little bit. That’s all.”

“You _traitor_ ,” Ed says. “I’m _not_ the wife.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Al says. “And neither did anybody else. And neither _will_ anybody else, or I will personally deprive them of a vital organ.”

There are so many reasons it’s really hard to stay mad at Al.

Ed makes a valiant effort to keep at it this time, though, and holds onto his scowl. “How much of your little routine was totally fake?”

Al pauses to chew on his lip as he considers. “Everything except the crying,” he decides. “That was genuinely one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me, and I love you all the more for it.”

“Shut up,” Ed says.

Al just beams at him.

“ _Shut up_ ,” Ed says.

“Think about it this way,” Al says. “Lieutenant Havoc is reasonably superstitious, so we’ll probably get to torment him at _his_ wedding very soon.”

“You’re so _evil_ ,” Ed says, dragging him into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re on _my_ side most of the time.”

 

* * *

 

They chill out at the bar with Madame Christmas, who makes Ed the most colorful drink he has ever seen in his life. Winry comes over, and this time Al’s deft hand signal to Ed and Christmas is a pretty universal gesture for _cut her off_.

Ed finds out why when Winry stumbles on her high heels and then drapes herself all over him, arms slung around his neck.

“I can’t believe you got married first,” she says. “You’re so _obnoxious_.”

“Thank you,” Ed says, patting her back gingerly.

“But it’s, like, traditional,” Winry says. “The older sibling has to get hitched before the younger one can, right? So now we gotta find someone for Al.”

“Why don’t we worry about that tomorrow, Winry?” Al asks in a very soothing voice. “After you’ve had a nice, long rest and several dozen painkillers.”

“Gotta hook him up,” Winry mutters into Ed’s shoulder.

Ed and Al look at each other for a long moment, and Ed can tell that neither of them is surprised that they’re thinking the same thing.

“I’ll go call the cab,” Al says. “Can you hang onto her for a few minutes afterward while I say my goodnights?”

“’Course,” Ed says. “You have enough change?”

“I’m fine,” Al says, grinning. “Although that reminds me—did you ever give Roy’s money back?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ed says, as innocently as he can manage.

As Al darts off to the pay phone in the hall, Ed uses a clever combination of physical strength and plain old _physics_ to lever Winry up onto the barstool next to him, where she sits relatively stably, all things considered.

“Did you ever think this’s where we’d be?” Winry asks after a moment.

Ed watches Roy sweeping back and forth across the dance floor as he teaches Elysia how to waltz. Gracia is trying to take pictures, but she keeps having to stop to wipe her eyes.

“Nope,” he says. “Sheer dumb fucking luck, from the very start.”

Roy twirls Elysia for good measure and then cranks the charm up to unbearable levels; it stands to Elysia’s credit that she’s only blushing furiously, not just passing out on the spot.

“But are you _happy_?” Winry asks suddenly, seizing Ed’s sleeve.  “That’s the important thing; that’s the _only_ thing—are you?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, unfastening her fingers from his sleeve and clasping her hand in his instead. “I am. More than I figured was possible, actually. When I slow down and think about it, it kinda scares me a little bit.”

Winry blinks. “Because… equivalent exchange?”

“Because equivalent exchange,” Ed says.

Winry looks over at Roy, who’s kissing Elysia’s hand and pulling out a chair for her—at which point he turns and immediately draws Gracia out onto the dance floor instead.

There’s something horrible sticking in Ed’s throat. He knows, now—he knows how it feels to find someone so fucking wonderful that you want to include them in every single moment of your whole fucking life. He knows now what it feels like to have someone promise you that they’ll be there, that they’ll _stay_ there, that you’ll never have to be alone and adrift ever again, because they’ll always have your back, and they’ll always _build_ with you. They’ll always build you back up.

Now he can conceptualize what Gracia Hughes has lost.

Now he understands how strong she really is.

“I dunno,” Winry says. “I think you’ve earned it.” Ed starts to grin. “…you big dork. Well, you _little_ dork, I guess.”

“Come on,” Ed says, swallowing the sigh. “Let’s go see if Al’s got you a cab yet.”

 

* * *

 

The night winds down faster than Ed expected, really, and he keeps getting caught up in farewells to people heading for the door as he tries to make his way back to Roy.

Teacher drags him into a rib-cracking hug, during which Sig pats him on the head just once, though his hand is so huge that the gesture might very well make Ed noticeably shorter.

Teacher steps back and puts both of her hands on his shoulders. She’s smiling at him, and her eyes are really warm, and Ed is definitely, _definitely_ not going to tear up.

“One piece of advice,” she says, “and one only. Take nothing for granted. I know you know that. Just promise me you’ll never forget.”

“I promise,” Ed says.

Teacher squeezes his shoulders, smiling just a little wider still. “I’m so proud of you,” she says.

And then they’re whisking out the door, and Ed is _obviously_ not balanced precariously on the verge of crying his eyes out, and it’s just a coincidence that Roy appears from nowhere and gently touches his arm and very subtly passes him a handkerchief and smiles at him like he hung the fucking constellations one-by-one.

“So,” Roy says. “Would you like to know?”

“Know what?” Ed asks, twisting the shit out of the handkerchief and doing his damnedest not to need it.

“What it feels like to be married to the most wonderful person alive,” Roy says. “I can describe it to you now.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Ed says.

“Anything for you, dear,” Roy says.

“You’re such a fucking pushover,” Ed says. “I can’t believe all those people voted for you.”

Roy’s arm slips around his waist; their sides have always fit together so _naturally_ that it’s really kind of strange. “You really didn’t?”

“Of _course_ I did,” Ed says, frowning up at him now. “Because I knew it was what you wanted, even if it meant you’d have less time for me and our shit, and it’d be bad for you in the long run because of all the stress, and you’d make a crap-ass politician because you’re so un-rotten on the inside.”

Roy is _gazing_ at him, and the worst part is that Ed’s gazing back, and it doesn’t even feel all soppy and lame.

“I love you,” Roy says.

“You better,” Ed says.

“I am better,” Roy says, “because of it.”

And now Ed’s tear ducts are malfunctioning, and Roy’s handkerchief is getting a workout, and this whole thing is so _stupid_ and great. “Oh, fuck _you_.”

“I’m hoping for some of that, too,” Roy says, and he very gently tugs the handkerchief away, tilts the stupid hat back, and dries Ed’s eyes himself.

 

* * *

 

Hawkeye is the last person to leave. She makes sure of it by shoving them out the door in front of her.

“Goodnight, sir,” she says. “Goodnight, Ed. I hope everything was to your satisfaction.”

“It was perfect, Captain,” Roy says. “There isn’t enough gratitude in a thousand ‘thank you’s for everything you’ve done.”

“That’s very poetic, sir,” Hawkeye says, straight-up deadpan, but Ed can see the faintest hint of her well-guarded smile. “You two should probably be going if you want to get any sleep tonight.”

“Yes, Captain,” Roy says.

Hawkeye smiles just a fraction more and shuts the door.

Ed looks at Roy. “Did your second-in-command just _tell_ us to go have a ton of riotous wedding-night sex?”

Roy takes his hand and leads the way to the car, grinning broadly. “Some people don’t believe me when I say I have the best team anyone could ask for.”

Ed makes sure to dart forward to the car door so that Roy won’t get it for him. “What dumbasses.”

“What dumbasses indeed,” Roy says.

 

* * *

 

The second they get into the house, Ed grabs Roy’s uniform by the braiding and pushes him up against the door and kisses him. Roy delves both hands into his hair, and he can feel the little hard line of the silver ring against his skull, and it feels _amazing_.

“So, Führer Mustang,” Ed says when he has no choice but to draw back to catch his breath. “How many hours until we have to leave for our little honeymoon thing?”

Roy’s hands migrate very rapidly down to his ass. “My dearest love,” he says, “not nearly enough.”


End file.
